This invention relates to ovens. More particularly, this invention relates to a burner plate for use with a gas burner that can be used to generate infrared heat.
Convection ovens cook food using heated air and are slow. Microwave ovens on the other hand are very fast. They pass microwaves, usually at a wavelength of about 12 cm through food. Water, fat and other substances in the food absorb energy from the microwaves. Microwave ovens are generally used for time efficiency in both industrial applications such as restaurants and at home, rather than for cooking quality because a microwave oven cannot brown food.
Infrared ovens are generally faster than convection ovens because they use infrared radiation, but they are slower than microwave ovens. Of the various wavelengths of IR, short wavelength infrared is known to penetrate food more deeply than long-wavelength food and therefore cooks faster than long wavelength IR.
A problem with infrared ovens is the time required to heat an element to the temperature at which it will emit short wavelength IR. An energy efficient source of short-wavelength infrared that heats quickly would be an improvement over the prior art. More particularly, an oven that directs infrared onto a food being cooked from both above and below the item would be an improvement over the prior art.